


The Cabinet of Calamari

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-30
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2019-10-30 01:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17818973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Spike and Buffy have a quiet dinner out...like heck.





	The Cabinet of Calamari

**Author's Note:**

> My last ghost-buster prompt! Set in Cleveland's Little Italy this time.

Spike picked up his fork, set it down, picked it up and stood it on end. The silence prevailed. He glanced around the mostly-empty dining room. “So, is this the restaurant Faith works at?”

Buffy glanced up from the menu, looking a little caught-out, like it was a pop quiz. “No, that’s La Dolce Vita, across the street and down a bit.”

Spike nodded, slowly, and tried to find another conversation topic by scanning the baskets, bottles and plastic grapes festooned around the fake wood paneling of Mama Santa’s Italian Restaurant. There wasn’t one. “So are you going to tell me why you ran off to Cleveland?”

Eyes still on the menu – which was only one page so he knew she wasn’t still reading it – Buffy said, “You know why.”

“I might know, but I don’t understand.” He leaned forward, hands together, voice low and gentle. “You could have just said no when I asked.”

She bit her lip, her large eyes finally looking fully into his. “I didn’t want to say no,” she said.

There could have been pretty much an apocalypse at that point and Spike wouldn’t have minded or noticed. He picked her hand up off the vinyl tablecloth and held it and she let him, and looked embarrassed. “I just…”

“You don’t’ have to say anything,” he said. “Or decide anything.”

“It’s not about deciding. I just… I freaked. I gave up on thinking about marriage and normal stuff and it’s like the part of my brain that was set up to deal with that-“

Spike was nodding, following along carefully now that the floodgates of Buffy Silence had finally broken, so he was slower than Buffy to turn toward the screaming.

A woman with a graying bun and black apron ran into the room from the kitchen, stopping with her back against the flapping door. Something slapped into the door behind her, something big and wet, darkening the little round window. The woman shouted in Italian, repeating a phrase. A waiter ran to help her hold the door shut.

Buffy blinked. “What the heck?”

“She’s going on about some cabinet of calamari. Never... never open the cabinet of calamari.” Spike shook his head. “This can’t be good.

Buffy gaped at Spike. “You speak Italian?”

He smiled cryptically. “Don’t tell Angel.” He stood. “Shall we table this discussion until after desert?”

“Maybe we should have gone to La Dolce Vita,” she said, stepping around her chair and approaching the kitchen door. “Tell me you have a weapon on you.”

“Oh yeah,” Spike said, grinning and brandishing his fork.

The wait-staff shuddered as another wet slap hit the kitchen door. Smaller tentacles were slipping around the edges, dripping in tomato juice. “We’ll handle this,” Buffy said, stepping to the edge. “Let go on three.”

“Grazie,” the woman said, still struggling to hold against the monster. “Your dinner is on the house.”

“No, it’s in the kitchen,” quipped Spike. He put his shoulder to the door and the restaurant owner was able to slide back. He locked eyes with Buffy. “We’re still finishing that conversation later.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “With my luck there’s a cannoli demon at the bakery. On three, together.”

“Always.”


End file.
